Fallout 3 Walkthrough & Strategy Guide

The winding-yet-linear pathway will eventually open up into a long, long corridor stretching out as far as the eye can see. To the left of this corridor, if you're facing forward, will be a room that leads to a smaller, parallel corridor. Both pathways are lined with completely foreign computer terminals, input stations and the like. And unfortunately, with the exception of a random Large Alien Crystal, none of the alien items lining various shelves can be acquired. That is, of course, with the exception of their food, their ammunition, and of course, their weapons. And it's when you reach this elongated corridor that the crap hits the fan, because those very weapons will be turned on you in brutal fashion.

Expect to take a considerable amount of damage in the ensuing encounters with about a dozen aliens or so. Armed with two types of weapons, neither are as strong as the Alien Blaster, but both are stronger than just about any firearms you have in your inventory. Keep cranking on the Stimpaks as you fall back and let the aliens come to you, using explosives and mines to chip away at their damage. See if you can prioritize killing better-armed enemies before the ones equipped with, say, Shock Batons. And of course, scour their bodies for goods (as well as the lone container in the room leading to the parallel corridor). You can find all sorts of good stuff, including Alien Disintegrators and Alien Atomizers of your own, as well as Alien Squid Food, Alien Worm Food, Alien Power Modules, and even more Large Alien Crystals.

At the far end of the long corridor, you can find a door leading rightward, but expect to be attacked by two Shock Baton-wielding aliens as soon as you go through. Thereafter, things will remain quiet for a while. Eventually, you'll reach a room that has two floors. The top floor is essentially a catwalk surrounding the left side of the room, with a staircase leading back down to the front floor on the north end of the area. The bottom floor is a steam-heavy location rife with enemies. In fact, both upstairs and downstairs seem to be equally rife with enemies, but you'll want to eliminate the contingent of foes on the catwalk above before even thinking about going anywhere on the bottom floor. That way, no one can talk potshots at you from above while you're walking around below, eliminating any advantage the enemy forces here might have had.

The enemies you encounter here are of a pretty standard fare. Many of the enemies you will fight are regular aliens, whether in their normal suits or spacesuits, equipped with three kinds of weapons. If you're lucky, you'll be fighting a lot of aliens wielding Shock Batons, but chances are, you're not going to be even remotely that lucky. Instead, expect to find plenty of alien foes wielding their normal firearm fare in the form of Alien Disintegrators and Alien Atomizers. You'll also run into a couple of new kinds of enemies here, one easy to defeat, the other not so much. The first kind of new enemy you'll defeat are the rudimentary alien-built machines roving about called Support Drones. These guys specialize in melee combat, but can be easily defeated with simple firearm rounds. The other kind of new enemy is a cloaked alien foe that is essentially a damage sponge. Expect to heal a lot as you whittle down this enemy's health, though you should only run into one of them... for now.

Otherwise, there are a few items you can grab on the upper floor, but nothing too remarkable. Some Alien Epoxy can be found on a shelf to your left, and another alien container holds more weapons and ammunition for you to grab -- same old stuff. Head back to the ground floor when you can, and continue into the next area (the doors on the right side of the bottom floor in the previous area contain nothing, so they can be ignored outright). The winding path you reach from here is of the linear variety. When you reach another healing station tucked into a nook on your left, you know you're headed in the right direction. Oh, and a word on "Alien Workers" you might encounter. These guys are non-hostile and will actively run away from you when they see you. If you decide to kill them, they're only worth one experience point each, and furthermore, you'll earn negative karma for each death inflicted. You've been warned.